I'm a big fan of the late actor Robert Mitchum. I wonder why. I guess because nowadays there's no big, real man actors out there. Nowadays all that passes for male stars are wimps and geeks like Brad Spitt Johnny Depp or Hugh Downey (??) and what not.
My dad never liked Mitchum because, according to him, he had a "nothing face". Well that "nothing face" was Mitchum's best asset. It made him into a film noir (google it) type actor. But also it gave him an excuse to have this lah-de-dah image to push to the media, sort of like Dean Martin did.
Mitchum's life in reality was a B movie. His father died when he was 2. He got kicked out of more schools for brawling that I've owned shoes. At 14 he wound up on a chain gang. But he also wrote poetry. He wrote plays for a local theater where he worked as a stagehand. He took to the vagabond life on the road where he met his future wife, then worked at Lockheed where the job stress cause him temporary blindness. He actually did ghostwriting for a traveling astrologer. He was an amateur boxer, where he admits he got good and whipped.
After he got big, he got into singing and recording. His specialty was Calypso music. He recorded numerous albums, and sometimes his own voice was subbed for the pro actors in his movies.
Here is a consorium of his famous quotes. Courtesy of quotelucy.com.
There just isn`t any pleasing some people. The trick is to stop trying.
Sure I was glad to see John Wayne win the Oscar ... I`m always glad to see the fat lady win the Cadillac on TV, too.
I never changed anything, except my socks and my underwear. And I never did anything to glorify myself or improve my lot. I took what came and did the best I could with it.
I`ve still got the same attitude I had when I started. I haven`t changed anything but my underwear.
I kept the same suit for six years - and the same dialog. We just changed the title of the picture and the leading lady.
When asked what he looked for in a script before accepting a job, he said, "Days off."
I started out to be a sex fiend but couldn`t pass the physical.
I`ve survived because I work cheap and don`t take up too much time.
Where are the real artists? Today it`s four-barreled carburettors and that`s it. (1967)
I gave up being serious about making pictures around the time I made a film with Greer Garson and she took a hundred and twenty-five takes to say no.
I never will believe there is such a thing as a great actor. (1948)
People think I have an interesting walk. Hell, I`m just trying to hold my gut in.
I came back from the war and ugly heroes were in.
Asked his opinion of the Vietnam War in 1968: "If they won`t listen to reason over there, just kill `em. Nuke `em all."
When Mitchum, who served time for marijuana possission, was asked what it was like in jail, he replied, "It`s like Palm Springs without the riff-raff."
I have two acting styles: with and without a horse.
You know what the average Robert Mitchum fan is? He`s full of warts and dandruff and he`s probably got a hernia too, but he sees me up there on the screen and he thinks if that bum can make it, I can be president.
Movies bore me; especially my own.
When asked why in his mid-sixties he took on the arduous task of starring in an 18-hour mini-series "The Winds of War" (1983) (mini): "It promised a year of free lunches."
Every two or three years, I knock off for a while. That way I`m always the new girl in the whorehouse
Listen. I got three expressions: looking left, looking right and looking straight ahead. (on his acting talents)
